Broadband Wilkinson Divider

Andreas Wentzel and Dariusz Pienkowski

Technische Universitt Berlin, Microwave Enginering Group, Einsteinufer 25, 10587 Berlin, Germany,
tel. 00493031426984, pienkows@mwt.ee.tu-berlin.de


Short Abstract This paper introduces a hybrid wideband
architecture of the Wilkinson divider with tapered line and
compares it with two-stage architecture. Such a combiner is
broadband and works from 0.5 up to 3.5 GHz. The limiting
factor of this solution is the insertion loss.
Keyword: wilkinson powerd divider, combiner, tapering, power
amplifier
I. INTRODUCTION
The Wilkinson power divider is often made in microstrip or
stripline form and is in common use in RF design, since it was
introduced quite a lot years ago [1]. The divider/combiner is
used to combine the power of multiple transistors in an
amplifier or antennas in a system, or divide the power among
channels in a receiver [2]. The main disadvantage of the circuit
is relatively narrow band of operation, which gains more on
importance when ultra wide band solutions are required. Even
with the use of new wide band gap SiC or GaN transistors
achieving high output power in power amplifiers require the
use of power combining and dividing. Dividing is required at
the input of the power amplifier and combining is needed at its
output. In ideal case, when two amplifiers are considered the
output power can be doubled. However, the combiner and
splitter, which are in most cases the same structure introduces
losses. Therefore a low loss combiner is required what for one
frequency or even narrow band operation could be realized.
The problem enlarges when broadband power amplifier like
this shown in [6] are combined. This two-stage 5-W wide-band
RF power amplifier has been designed using a SiC MESFET
power stage covering the frequency range from 10 MHz up to
2.4 GHz. Another important combiner parameter is isolation.
The output power of one amplifier should not appear at the
output of another amplifiers output. With high output power
this issue gains on importance Thus, power combiner has to
feature with low loss and good isolation over a wide band at
the same time.
One of the established methods that enable the broadband
operation of the Wilkinson divider (combiner) is the use of
multiple stages, as it was introduced in [3]. Generally, each
stage makes the bandwidth wider, but simultaneously
introduces transmission losses, which are critical for high
power applications, as it is already written. This leads to the
trade-off between the losses and the bandwidth. More sections
require also more area. In case of system on board solutions it
is not the problem, but in same cases where area constraints are
important it could play an important role. Another possibility
for broadband operation is the use of tapered lines as it is
described in [4]. The tapered solution requires a similar area,
but shows the wider bandwidth.
An optimum solution seems to be a hybrid one that combines
two-stage and tapered combiners. Therefore, in this paper we
introduce two-stage Wilkinson power combiner with the
second section tapered. We investigate and compare a two-
stage combiner with a combiner with the second stage tapered.
This paper is organized as follows: section II describes the
design of the compared circuits, section III compares measured
and simulated data regarding insertion loss, return loss at the
input and output and isolation. Section IV completes this paper.

II. CIRCUIT REALIZATION
The simplified schematic of the two-stage Wilkinson combiner
is shown in Figure 1.
1
2
3
MLIN
TL15
MLIN
TL14
R
R4
R=100 Ohm
MLIN
TL13
MLIN
TL12
R
R3
R=100 Ohm
Port
P6
Port
P5
Port
P4

Figure 1. Two-stage Wilkinson combiner.

This combiner is called normal further in the scope of this
text. This circuit represents a lossy three-port network which
can be made having all ports matched with isolation between
the output ports (port 3 and port 2) [5]. It has the useful
property of being lossless when the output ports are matched;
that is, only reflected power is dissipated. This normal
Wilkinson combiner contains two pairs of quarter-wavelength
transmission lines having a characteristic impedance of 2Z
0

(70.7 if we define Z
0
to be 50 ) and two bridging resistors
with a value of 2Z
0
(100 ) to match the ports. The electrical
length of the transmission lines is different in each stages; it is
optimized for the broad band operation. The second combiner
introduced in this paper is shown in Figure 2. This circuit is
called tapered further in the text. The first stage is almost
identical with the normal combiner, and the second stage is
tapered. In reality more complicated structures are used,
because of area and feasibility constraints. Therefore,
transmission lines fabricated on the laminate are not straight;
they are curved this way, that small surface mounted resistor
can be placed at the end of the branches. Moreover in
physically realized structure which has been simulated
additional microstrip components (Tee, Bends, Steps) are used.
Therefore it was possibly to use the automatic layout
generation tool, the feature from ADS. The photograph of these
two dividers is shown in Figure 3. It is clear to see form the
photograph that second tapered stage consumes less area.

Among a possible few solutions for tapered microstrip line the
triangular taper has been chosen, because of the fact that such
transmission lines are available in layout design software ADS
form Agillent. The impedance of the triangular tapered
transmission line along its length Z(z) and the reflection
coefficient magnitude response || varies like it is shown in
Figure 4 and 5. The Z
0
means the impedance seen at the
beginning of the line, Z
L
is the load impedance connected to
the line. This two figures show the possibility of broadband
operation of such a transmission line. The impedance along the
line length and the reflection coefficient do not change as
rapidly as in the case of normal transmission line. Thus with
proper combining of transmission and tapered lines desired
passband operation of the divider can be achieved.

Figure 4. Variation of impedance of a tapered line
3
2
1
Port
P1
Port
P3
Port
P2
R
R2
R=100 Ohm
MTAPER
Taper2
MTAPER
Taper1
MLIN
TL11
MLIN
TL9
R
R1
R=100 Ohm

Figure 2. Two-stage Wilkinson divider with the second stage tapered.

Figure 5. Reflection coefficient magnitude response of a triangular
taper

III. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
In this section measurement data of the combiners are
shown. Both combiners have been fabricated using the
RO 4003 PCB laminate form ROGERS and measured in the
frequency range form 500 up to 5000 MHz. The resistors used
the circuit posses of 1 % tolerance. On the each following
Figure we compare both types of combiners.
In Figure 6 the input reflection coefficient at Port 1 (common
port) of both combiners is shown. If we assume that 10 dB is
the highest possible value; we see that the input matching at
Port 1 for normal combiner is not satisfactory for the
frequencies higher than 2.5 GHz. In turn, the tapered combiner
shows good input matching at this port in the whole, measured
frequency range.
In Figure 7 the input reflection coefficient at Port 2 and Port 3
is shown. Since the circuits are symmetrical both values are the
same, and for that reason only input matching at Port 3 is
depicted. Taking the same criterion as an in the previous case
we see that both solutions work in wide frequency range.


Figure 3. Photograph of the realised combiners; tapwerd on the left,
normal on the righ side.
The transmission loss of the combiners is shown in Figure 8.
This is important parameter and should be as low as possible.
The normal combiner has lower insertion losses than
tapered up to 2.5 GHz, but for the higher frequencies the
losses are unacceptable. In turn, tapered combiner works in
wider frequency range. With maximum 1 dB loss it works up
to 3.5 GHz, when the normal combiner only up to 2 GHz.
The insertion loss of the second branch (S
13
) is identical and
not shown here..
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
-5
-4.8
-4.6
-4.4
-4.2
-4
-3.8
-3.6
-3.4
-3.2
-3
Frequency [GHz]
S
1
2

[
d
B
]
Normal
Tapered

Figure 8. Measured S
12
of the combiner.
The last measured parameter is isolation between the ports
shown in Figure 9. Once again taking as a criterion the value of
10 dB is easy to see that tapered combiner works at least up
to 5 GHz. In turn, normal combiner works up to 2.5 GHz.
However the lowest value of less then -35 dB shows the
normal combiner.
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
-30
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
Frequency [GHz]
S
1
1

[
d
B
]
Normal
Tapered
Figure 6. Measured S
11
of the cominer.





IV. CONCLUSION
Two wideband architecture of the Wilkinson divider are
shown in this paper. Two-stage transmission line architecture is
compared with the architecture with the second stage tapered.
The second architecture is broadband and works up to 3.5 GHz,
since the architecture without tapered stage only up to 2.5 GHz.
The limiting factor of the tapered solution is insertion loss,
because other parameters are broadband. Two stages untapered
solution is limited by insertion losses, isolation and input
matching at the common port.
There are several possibilities to improve the performance
of the combiner presented in this paper. The third stage would
also increase the the transmission loss, but additive inductive
and capacitive elements connected in the branches of existing
two stages will help to decrease loss.
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
-35
-30
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
Frequency [GHz]
S
3
3

[
d
B
]
Normal
Tapered

Figure 7. Measuered S
33
of the combiner.
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
-40
-35
-30
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
Frequency [GHz]
S
3
2

[
d
B
]
Normal
Tapered

Figure 9. Measured S
32
of the combiners.
REFERENCES
[1] E. Wilkinson, An N-Way Hybrid Power Divider, IRE Transactions on
Microwave theory and Techniques, January 1960, p. 116-119
[2] I.D. Robertson, S. Lucyszyn, RFIC and MMIC design and technology,
IEE Circuits, Devices and Systems Series 13
[3] S. B. Cohn, A Clas of Broadband Three-port TEM Hybrids, IEEE
Transaction on Microwave Theroy and Techniques, vol MTT-16, No 2,
Febraury 1968, pp 110 - 116
[4] D.I. Stones, P. D. Chowm, Q and V band Combiners MTT-S Digest,
1991, pp 1049 1052.
[5] D. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, 3
rd
Edition, John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2005
[6] Sayed, A.; Boeck, G.Two-stage ultrawide-band 5-W power amplifier
using SiC MESFET, Transactions on Microwave Theory and
Techniques, Volume 53, Issue 7, July 2005 Pages:2441-2449